Frontiers

In 1994 C. R. Whittaker published a book on Frontiers of the Roman Empire. A Social and Economic Study (Baltimore and London). In it he suggested that the Roman frontiers were to be regarded as zones of cultural and economic interchange rather than as linear barriers (cf. his chapter in CAH XI2 [2000], 293–319): for favourable reviews see CR 45 (1995), 338–9; JRS 85 (1995), 292. Routledge has now issued a welcome collection of ten later articles on the subject (and on Rome’s relations with India), seven of which have been published previously. Chapter 1, ‘Where Are the Roman Frontiers Now?’ (pp. 1–27) develops ideas presented in his earlier work and analyses recent contributions by other scholars. He deμnes a limes as ‘the land that forms the furthest extent of a country’s settled or inhabited region’ (p. 6). This suits developed limites but does not take into account the original sense of limes as a road driven into hostile territory for military advance (referred to on pp. 69 and 80): cf. Cicero’s remark (Pis. 38) that the ‘μnes prouinciae’ were where the soldiers’ swords were. However, the chapter is a useful and up-to-date presentation of current thinking on Roman frontiers. Chapter 2, ‘Grand Strategy or Just a Grand Debate?’ (pp. 28–49), addresses E. N. Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore and London, 1976). W. rejects L.’s theory of a centrally directed evolution of the frontiers in favour of intermittent reaction to crises: the infrastructure hardly allowed much more (p. 34: ‘make others slaves’ seems too strong a translation of ‘instrumenta seruitutis’ in Tac. Agr. 14; the meaning seems rather to be that Cogidubnus, though a king, was just treated as a cog in the process of subjection). Chapter 3, ‘The Importance of the Invasions of the Later Roman Empire’ (pp. 50–62), maintains that traditional scholarship has exaggerated the impact of the Barbarian Invasions on the empire. Chapter 4, ‘Mental Maps and Frontiers’ (pp. 63–87), is concerned with the state of geography in the Empire. In fact, generals operated not with maps but linear itineraries. (p. 81: Velleius does not ‘give the distance between the Rhine and the Elbe as 400 miles’; what he said was that Tiberius marched 400 miles from the Rhine to the mouth of the Elbe.) In Chapter 5, ‘Supplying the Army: The Evidence of Vindolanda’ (pp. 88–114), W. asks whether the Vindolanda Tablets throw any light on the question of army supply. His conclusion is that they provide little new evidence and that it appears that there was no uniform system. (p. 105: Treuerus should read Treuer; p. 111: Classis Germanicus . . . Britannicus should read Germanica . . . Britannica; p. 112: quaestururam should read quaesturam.) Chapter 6, ‘Sex on the Frontiers’ (pp. 115–43), treats two topics, the Roman custom of portraying conquered peoples as young women, and the presence of women on the frontiers and in the camps. On the μrst, it would have been better to distinguish more sharply between digniμed personiμcations of female provinces and the weeping μgures of post-conquest prouincia capta coins, and to have analysed the Britannia and the Armenia reliefs at Aphrodisias especially with reference to the second type rather than the μrst. The evidence for women in the camps is mounting (that of the Vindonissa Tablets should have been added): for a recent discussion see B. Pferdehirt, Die Rolle des Militärs für den sozialen Aufstieg . . . (Mainz, 2002), pp. 192–228 (p. 118: Claudius did not ‘receive the title of Germanicus when his uncle, the Elder Drusus, triumphed’. Drusus was his father, and Claudius only took the title on the death of his brother    261